Garinim

A short week, but a fun one! As we get to know the children’s interests and skills more, we are able to provide them work which will be most engaging and challenging for them. We are getting to know these little ones better (and vice versa!) and there were some new activities that the children really enjoyed this week. 

 

One very popular activity is a two part work, buttons in a jar. The children open the jar, empty the buttons out into a small bowl, close the jar again, and then fit the buttons into a small slot in the lid to fill the jar back up. Some children need a bit of help with the lid, while others are able to open and close it on their own. All of them are giving it a good try though.

 

This week we also introduced paint at our easel, which has been a big hit! The children not only enjoy painting with the tempera cakes, but are also fascinated watching the brush water change color as they rinse it between colors. They also empty and refill the water when they are finished. Carrying the small container of water back and forth from easel to sink and back is a great practical life and gross motor skill.

On Friday, we had our first Shabbat dance party! The children had so much fun dancing with scarves to some upbeat Shabbat songs. We will continue to do this every Friday!

We discussed Yom Kippur and the story of Jonah and the whale. As an extension the children painted whales using two different mediums.  The primary focus is for our Garinim to grasp what Yom Kippur truly means by saying sorry for hurting anyone, spreading kindness and love through our actions, i. e. we all held hands as a group (it was very sweet just how calm and sensitive the children were). We talked about how the children could help to clean up their toys and continue to love family and friends.

As part of art we made pomegranates and kiwis to symbolize how many seeds that are in the fruit and just how easy it is to do good deeds/mitzvot. Gmar Chatimah Tovah.

On Friday, we had our first Shabbat dance party! The children had so much fun dancing with scarves to some upbeat Shabbat songs. We will continue to do this every Friday!

Anafim

Even with it being such a short week we were so busy!  Everyone eagerly arrived at school on Wednesday and we quickly got down to business.  Nurse Ericka came in for a visit and talked about germs.  She did a fun activity with us to represent how easily it is to spread germs and why it is so important to wash our hands.  Every child got a special glitter mixture given to them and were instructed to rub it in.  The glitter was our germs.  We then shook hands with other children that had different colored glitter and watched how easily the glitter colors transferred to each other.  Nurse Ericka then watched as we washed our hands and instructed us on good hand washing techniques.  

Thursday we talked about Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement) approaching and how important it is to think about the things we might not have done the best this year and how we can be better in the new year.  We also talked about a ceremony called Tashlich.  This is when you“throw away” your wrong doings from the year by “putting them into” bread, paper, or something else and then let them go.  This is traditionally done at a large body of water with bread or lint from your pocket, at school we actually did it two different ways, once with little scraps of paper thrown into a bowl of water and once with wood chips thrown into a small pool of water.  

Friday we had our first fire drill of the year.  Some of the children were a little surprised by how loud it was but we all quickly and safely exited the building when we heard the loud noise.  Because we were on our way to the chapel, we quickly exited the building through a door we don’t normally use and went outside.  It was quite an adventure but all the children did beautifully and lined up and stayed quiet, just like the older children.   Once we got the all clear sign we continued on our way to the chapel for our Shabbat celebration.  This week Morah Lana put together a wonderful presentation of the story of Jonah and the Whale.  The children were quite entertained by all the props she brought to help her tell the story.  

Somehow in the middle of all of this we still had time to do work in our classroom with many children receiving a presentation on the binomial cube and a couple even progressing on to the trinomial cube.  We also made challah this week and once again carefully braided it into a beautiful round shape.  Our art project this week was making our very own Jonah and the whale.  The children had a great time adding a face to the whale and decorating Jonah as well.  Next week we will talk a bit more about Jonah right before Yom Kippur (don’t forget we are closed Tuesday and Wednesday) and then once we return we will move on to talking about Sukkot.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Alim

This week the classroom had the Primary Red theme.  We had many new Practical Life activities such as strainer work,  pouring from one pitcher into three smaller containers,  basting work and new sorting work.  In Art,  there were different red activities such as gluing apples on a tree and some chalk leaf decorating.  Also, the children decorated a whale with a googly eye for Yom Kippur.

We discussed that the color RED is a primary color and if you mix it together it will change colors. The color red stands alone.  We experimented with mixing white and red together at the easel to make pink.  

We made challah for the first time this week.  It was a super fun activity that the children really enjoyed.  We all helped make the dough from scratch on Wednesday and then on Thursday, the children helped braid it into two round challot.   The children were so excited and happy with how it turned out.  It will be a fun tradition that we will do weekly in our classroom.  Every Friday after the chapel, as a classroom family we will enjoy our fresh challah for Shabbat.  We discussed Yom Kippur and read the story Sammy Spider’s First Yom Kippur.

Keshet

This week we worked in our Math Textbooks and Activity Books, working with items that ‘go together’ and explaining why those objects go together. We continue to practice writing individual letters/sounds each day, and are getting quite good at this, and Thursday was the day we brought out neatly written name ‘tags’ and each child practiced writing their own name within the lines. 

In Science we started a unit on leaves, exploring leaf shapes, and noticing the various parts of the leaf; margin, apex, main vein, small veins. With a brief introduction to the Leaf Cabinet, the students noticed many different leaf shapes and were able to match leaves to the leaf outline.  We will continue next week…

As is traditional on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah ( or may be done any day thereafter) we went as a group, on Thursday, along with the fifth and sixth graders to the house up the road, singing …

To Tashlich we will go

To Tashlich we will go

To throw away our averot,

To Tashlich we will go.

 

Ask your child to sing this for you.  At the pond/river we thought about all that we were proud of this year and some things that we can do better (listen to parents/ teachers !!) Talk to brother/sister about not breaking your Lego building… the children shared some lovely scenarios…

Leading up to Yom Kippur, we’re talking about Jonah and the Big Fish, the story told on Yom Kippur, and enjoyed a participatory ‘puppet show’ with props during Shabbat in the Chapel. Art included painting the whale/big fish with water colors and some students added seaweed and small fish to their Jonah and the Whale collage. 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/nghE1YF1pZjmuxU48